ＹＵＮＤＩ （李雲迪） All Chopin Program

Internationally acclaimed pianist YUNDI was propelled onto the international stage when he won first prize at the XIV Chopin International Piano Competition at the age of 18, becoming the youngest and first Chinese winner in the history of the prestigious competition. Since then, he has been regarded as a leading exponent of Chopin’s music. In recognition of his contribution to Polish culture, the Government of Poland presented a Gold Medal for Merit to Culture ‘Gloria Artis’ to YUNDI in 2010.
On his regular recital tours, YUNDI has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall (New York), Royal Festival Hall (London), Musikverein Vienna, Alte Opera Frankfurt, Herkulessaal (Munich), Konzerthaus Berlin, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, Salle Pleyel (Paris), Mariinsky Concert Hall (St Petersburg), National Centre for Performing Arts (Beijing), Seoul Arts Centre and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). Orchestras and conductors with whom he has collaborated include the Berliner Philharmoniker and Seiji Ozawa, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and Riccardo Chailly, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Harding, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick N?zet-S?guin, Philharmonia Orchestra and Andrew Davis, Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, and the Israel Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. He has also performed with the Vienna Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington), Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony and NHK Symphony.
YUNDI’s 2012/13 season opens with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Vassily Sinaisky. He returns to Malaysia, Taiwan and Korea before embarking on a recital tour in Europe which includes performances in London, Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague and Moscow.
In addition to his activities on the concert platform, YUNDI is also passionate about humanitarian work, which includes acting as an ambassador of the Red Cross Society of China and for his hometown of Chongqing. Equally committed to promoting classical music in an educational context, YUNDI is one of the pioneers of musical education in China, where his success story has played a crucial role in millions of children learning the piano. He has also given masterclasses at the Royal College of Music, University of Cambridge and Qinghua University in Beijing. In Autumn 2012, he was appointed Associate Dean and Professor of the Piano Faculty at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music.
YUNDI has released nine CDs worldwide on Deutsche Grammophon and EMI Classics. In 2007, he became the first Chinese pianist to record live with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Seiji Ozawa. This Deutsche Grammophon disc met with rave reviews and was named ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone magazine. On EMI Classics, he has released the complete Chopin Nocturnes, Live in Beijing (the first live recording to emerge from the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing since its inception in 2007) and Red Piano, an album celebrating piano music written by Chinese composers. YUNDI’s next CD, a recording of three of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, will be released on Deutsche Grammophon in Spring 2013.
Born in Chongqing, YUNDI began piano studies at age seven. He subsequently trained at the Shenzhen Arts School and Hochschule f?r Musik und Theater Hannover.

Born in Tokyo in March 1959, Mr. Shigeo Genda began studying the cello with Katsuo Shimizu. He majored in conducting at the Tokyo Music College, studying under Yasuhiko Shiozawa and Sei-ichi Mitsuishi and, at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, under Kohtaro Satoh. In 1983, he was the recipient of the Nomura Scholarship. In 1986, following his opera debut conducting the Niki-kai Opera Foundation in Hansel und Gretel, he continued with the Niki-kai Opera in such performances as Die Fledermaus, at the same time steadily building his achievements with orchestra concerts.
In September of 1987, he was appointed conductor of the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra. The next year in April, at the Japan Shinsei Symphony’s 108th Subscription Concert, he drew the attention of the music world when he conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in a striking orchestral debut. Since appearing that same year in October, as guest conductor with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra on their Japan Tour, he has led Japan’s most important orchestras, receiving wide acclaim. In 1996, he was appointed conductor of the Kanagawa Philharmoic Orchstra and, since September 2000, he is in the post of the principal conductor of the orchestra.
　 Not confining his activities to Japan, Genda is an outstanding talent who continues to make rapid progress as an international conductor.
In May and June of 1990, he toured Europe with the Japan Shinsei Symphony and, from October of that same year, he studied at the Vienna Staatsoper at government expense as an overseas artistic research student from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. In January and February of 1991, he was praised highly for his work as the Prague National Theatre Orchestra’s guest conductor on their Japan Tour.
In May 1993, he appeared at the internationally watched Prague Spring International Music Festival, winning a favorable reception from audiences. He was invited to this Festival in May 1995, and has been chosen to be on the judging committee of the Conductors Section of the Prague Spring International Music Competition.
Genda is expanding his talent as an opera conductor with extensive experience in the orchestra pit. In 1994, he conducted Orphee aux enfers with the Hokkaido Niki-kai Opera Foundation in February, Le nozze de Figaro in Tokyo and Hiroshima in March, and Das Rheingold with the Kansai Niki-kai Opera Foundation in October. In July of 1995, he conducted the Tokyo Niki-kai Opera Foundation’s performance of Die Csardasfurstin. In 1996, he followed the March performance of Don Giovanni with the April performance of Le nozze de Figaro the May performance of Die Zauberflote, and, in October, toured Japan with Sato Shinobu. In may of 1997, he conducted the Kansai Niki-kai Opera Foundation’s production of Die Walkure. In 2001, he was a music director of the Japan Arts production’s Cosi fan tutte.
Future plans include the March 2003 performance with the Kansai Nikikai Opera Foundation’s production of Il Trovatore, and Die Fledermaus with Yokohama City Opera.
And in 2004, he will be a music director of Japan Arts Production Il Barbiere di Seviglia, and following September, he conducts as a guest conductor with the Slovak National Theatre’s La Traviata on their Japan Tour.

The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1946. Jonathan Nott, taking over as Music Director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 2014, opens his inaugural season with a performance of Mahler’s 9th Symphony. The Orchestra has Hubert Soudant and Kazuyoshi Akiyama as Laureate Conductors, Norichika Iimori as Resident Conductor, Krzysztof Urbanski as Principal Guest Conductor, and Naoto Otomo as Honorary Guest Conductor. The line-up of conductors who have conducted for the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in the past include distinguished names such as Arvid Jansons, Hidemaro Konoye and Masashi Ueda.
In April 2011, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra was accredited as ‘a public interest incorporated foundation’ by the Cabinet Office, which meant that its activities were widely recognized as being sound and serving public interest. Moreover, it was chosen as one of the four orchestras to receive annual provision for the first year of the Japan Arts Council’s Special Programme for Top-level Performing Arts Creativity that was inaugurated in fiscal year 2012.
Since September 2012, the orchestra has been run by a new management team consisting of Hideo Sawada, who was invited from H.I.S. Co., Ltd. as the new Chairman, Tadashi Yokokawa as Honorary Chairman, Hajime Hirasawa and Tatsumi Yoda both as Vice Chairman.
Since becoming the resident orchestra of the City of Kawasaki in July 2004, the Tokyo Symphony has been holding Kawasaki subscription concerts, masterpiece collection concerts, music appreciation classes, citizen’s concerts as well as visiting and performing at facilities in various parts of the city. It has also signed a semi-resident orchestra agreement with the City of Niigata, where it has been performing subscription concerts, special concerts, concerts for fifth graders and others since 1999.In 2013, the Orchestra has agreed with a new partnership with Hachioji College Community & Culture Fureai Foundation.
The orchestra performs over 160 times a year, combining both self-produced performances and commissioned performances. It has been playing at New National Theatre, Tokyo’s opera and ballet performances from January through March every year as one of the two regularly performing orchestras.
The Tokyo Symphony has a reputation for giving first performances of a number of new contemporary music and opera. Some of the major new works that it has performed in recent years include Helmut Lachenmann’s opera The Little Match Girl (2000, Japanese premiere, concert-style) Toshiro Mayuzumi’s opera Kojiki (A Record of Ancient Matters) (2001, Japan premiere, concert-style), John Adam’s El Ni?o (2003, Japan premiere), John Adam’s Flowering Tree (2008, Japan premiere, centre-stage style),Janacek Opera Series, Schubert’s Symphony Zyklus (2008), Schoenberg Project (2011) and others, which have attracted attention in the music circle every year. Through these activities, the orchestra has received most of Japan’s major music awards such as the Minister of Education Award, Ongaku no Tomo Sha Award, the Grand Prix of Kyoto Music Award, Mainichi Art Award, Agency for Cultural Affairs Art Award, Mobil Music Award, Suntory Music Award and the Special Prize of Kenzo Nakajima Music Award. In 2013, the Orchestra received the Kawasaki City Culture Award for 2013, which is given to an individual or organization in recognition of their remarkable efforts in developing and advancing culture and the arts in Kawasaki City.
The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra won the 21st Music Pen Club Japan Awards in the Concert and Performance Category for Schubert Zyklus, which was performed in the subscription concert in 2008. In the following year, the orchestra won prizes in two other categories of the same awards, namely the prize for Best Recording Product in the Classical Music Category and the prize for Best Recording in the Audio Category (recorded by N&F), for the recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. Winning the same award for two consecutive years attracted attention to the orchestra all at once. In the orchestra ranking conducted by a music magazine in 2008, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra gained the highest positioning among Japanese orchestras.
Outside of Japan, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra has performed 71 times in 53 cities, commencing with the tour to North America in 1976. In recent years, it was invited to China’s Dalian Summer International Art Festival in July 2010, becoming the first Japanese orchestra to perform in Dalian. The performance achieved great success and the orchestra was again invited to the same festival in July 2011.
The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra has also worked on concerts for children from an early stage. It received the 2010 Himawari Medal of Honor in the Group Category, highly commended for ‘making significant contributions to carrying on music culture to the next generation’ through the ‘Orchestra Experience from Age Zero’ project (held since 2007). The ‘Subscription Concert for Children’ series (held since 2001), presented in collaboration with Suntory Hall, has drawn attention not only from the music circle but also from various fields for its innovative idea of presenting the first subscription concert for children in Japan.
The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra has also been actively engaged in recording and broadcasting projects. It has released albums from several labels such as TOKYO SYMPHONY Label, N&F Label, King Records, EXTON and Nippon Columbia Label. The orchestra also regularly performs on TV Asahi’s programme ‘Untitled Concerts’.